


The first time I ever saw your face

by Vanimelda4



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Meta, facebook johnlock song prompts 2020, this is strange and i apologise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:34:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26429458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanimelda4/pseuds/Vanimelda4
Summary: "Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while."(Inspired by the song-prompt challenge on the Johnlock fanfic writers facebook group.The song we had to write a story to is: "First time ever I saw your face" by Roberta Flack.)
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 19
Kudos: 30





	The first time I ever saw your face

The first time I ever saw your face was at Bartholomew's hospital on January first of 1881.  
The steady flow of time has drowned many details of that first encounter in its tumultuous and murky waters but there are some aspects of it that still seem as clear as if they only happened yesterday. 

I think that, perhaps, in that moment on some level I already knew what was to come.  
How inevitable it had all been.  
Were I a more romantic soul I might even go so far as to call it “fate”  
I'm sure that's what you would have called it.  
Had you known then. 

The firm grip of your hand as I shook it in mine.  
Calloused fingers.  
Tanned skin.  
A strong and confident demeanor and yet.... a fragile soul underneath.  
Bent and shapen anew but not yet broken in the least by the troubles of the past. 

_Afghanistan or Iraq?_

I still remember quite clearly the cool gray-blue colour of your eyes.  
Like a sea calmed after a raging storm.  
Tranquil and yet fierce.  
A siren's call to my ever searching heart and mind. 

I think I had known then.  
I must have known then. 

It is so long ago now. 

When I close my own eyes I am transported back to our former lodging at Baker Street.  
You in your comfortable chair where on occasion you would doze off.  
In all those years we had been together the weariness of the war never truly left you.  
It had made a home in your very bones and no matter how hard I tried I was never truly able to chase it away. 

I used to watch you when you slept. 

The slow and steady rise and fall of your chest.  
You always seemed most at ease when in the soft embrace of slumber.  
Except when the nightmares came.  
Another unwanted souvenir from that ghastly war.

Whenever I found you moaning in your sleep, hands clenched tightly in the sheets, muscles taut as a bowstring, teeth grinding, pupils dashing this way and that behind their pale lids, tormented by an enemy that only existed in your minds eye, I would stroke your hair gently and whisper soothing words in your ear.  
Did you know I did that?  
You must have known.  
It usually managed to calm you down. 

We were quite a pair, weren't we? 

I have fond memories of those days although I have not gone back to reminisce on them in a very long time.  
But now I find myself transported back once more.  
How can I not?  
With all that has transpired recently.  
I never thought it possible that.....

But wait, I am getting ahead of myself. 

Back then it was not easy for men like us to be who we were.  
But we made it work nonetheless.  
We made it work.  
We worked well together. In every aspect.  
I could not imagine myself without you and, with a naivety very unbecoming of me, for a while, I thought that was how it always would be. 

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. 

But time.  
Time and tide wait for no man.  
Not even for the likes of us, my old friend.  
Time caught up with us in the end.  
Even retiring to a remote cottage in Sussex could not keep her forces at bay. 

I remember you as you were there.  
Your hair thinning and gray. The skin of your face now slightly sagging and each day bringing out a new wrinkle.  
You needed a cane to even walk to the breakfast table. Right there, in the end.  
But your eyes.  
They always remained the same.  
Pools of the blue of a stormy sea wherein I found my peace and meaning.  
I spent days and nights just laying awake trying to commit as much of you to memory as I possibly could.  
So as not to forget.  
In keeping the memory I hoped to keep a part of you alive and with me too.  
But in the end memories are just that.  
Memories.  
And they are never enough. 

It was also at that point that my seeming inability to age became more and more apparent.  
I tried to hide it with wigs, stage make-up and an exaggerated bent posture but I don't think I ever fooled you.  
You knew.  
You always knew everything about me.  
You had this ability to not only see me, but to look straight through me.  
Lay me bare in the most honest and humbling way there is. 

You never said anything though. 

You would just run your fingers through my curls, sigh, and place a gentle kiss upon them. 

I tried to hold on to the memory of those kisses too.  
But it has been so long.  
Some memories are too fragile to hold on to. They blow away like smoke in the wind. 

But not your eyes.  
Never those.  
They are the lighthouse that keeps me on course whenever I traverse the sea of the past. 

You eventually died in 1939.  
Fifty-eight years together sounds like a long time but I don't think any amount of years will ever have been enough. 

Back then I thought that, despite my youthful appearance and perfect health, I would surely follow you soon.  
After all, without each other, what was either of us really?

But nothing of the sort happened. 

I stubbornly carried on existing but was lost. Adrift at sea and no longer able to find the shore now that my trusty lighthouse had dimmed, crumbled and gone out. 

I am not ashamed to say that I lost myself in opium and cocaine for a fair number of years.  
Trying to wreak havoc on my body and mind, I suppose.  
Either trying to break them beyond repair or maybe.....just.....forget. 

Now, so many years later, I am even able to admit to you that I tried to end my life a handful of times.  
It never worked.  
I never aged.  
And I never died.  
Around 1980 I was finally starting to come to terms with the fact that, perhaps, I was immortal.  
Why fate had dealt me this cruel hand I could not say.  
For a while I held the theory that perhaps it was because of my non-belief in any God. Perhaps that, by being an atheist, I had lost my right to a place in either heaven or hell and was destined to walk the earth aimlessly for all eternity. 

What use is immortality if one must go it alone? 

I was left with many questions and no answers to speak of and you were no longer there to guide me.

And so I was adrift like this for many years. Centuries even.  
Never dying, never aging. Always alone.  
It wasn't until 2010 that I finally found my way back to London. 

London. 

That great cesspool into which all kinds of criminals, agents and drifters are irresistibly drained.  
As you once so eloquently put it yourself. 

I had imagined I would find the once familiar city changed beyond recognition after so many years but to my surprise I found that a lot was still the same. 

The hospital was still there, many streets were still the same and, although no more hansoms could be hailed, I still found that the stones of the streets greeted me like old friends as my feet alighted on them once more. 

It felt like coming home. 

But it was as if I was coming home to an empty and dilapidated house.  
Robbed of all of the heart and soul that once inhabited it. 

Even the fact that our old rooms at Baker Street were, once again, up for rent could not seem to lift my spirits. 

Until. 

The second time I saw your face was January 29th 2010.  
At first I could not believe my eyes.  
After all, after all those years, how could such a thing be?  
But I was as sure then as I had been centuries before. 

There are some details that the passage of time will never erase from my mind.  
No matter how long I live.  
The same grip, the same posture, the same eyes.....even the same name.  
Just for a moment the fluorescent lights around us were transformed into flickering candles.  
The past and the present seemed to exist simultaneously and it was making my head swim.

I felt as if I was drowning.  
Falling.  
Losing myself in you and going under willingly.  
I wondered if I had not died after all.  
If this was indeed heaven. If there was a God after all. 

“Afghanistan of Iraq?” I asked.  
But I already knew the answer. 

I recognized you but you did not recognize me.  
And how could you?  
You had died after all.  
It was you, but also.....in a way....it was not you. 

A new you. 

The same in every way but still different.  
If such a thing makes sense.  
I am still trying to wrap my head around it myself. 

The very next evening you were once again perched in your familiar chair at Baker Street and I felt a calm come over me I had not experienced in many, many years. I could not keep my eyes off of you.  
I felt as if I had finally found a sweet cool spring of water after having been tossed and turned on the salty waves for so many years.  
I wanted to drink my fill for as long as I could.  
I think it made you slightly uncomfortable.  
I apologize.  
I reckon you will grow familiar again with my strange and unusual ways soon enough. 

That evening, after you had retired to your room upstairs I wondered a great many things.  
Whether this was how it was always going to be from now on.  
Sherlock Holmes undying and Doctor Watson forever being reborn time and time again to be by his side as his constant companion and make him whole once more.  
If, somewhere, in some romantic chamber of the heart, these two can never die.  
I would not mind it if it were so.  
I would face the end of the universe without a shred of fear or unease if I was able to do it with you by my side. 

At the moment you are giving me a curious look across the breakfast table as I write away at this letter.  
It is a letter for you. A letter you are unlikely to ever read. It's existence will only be made apparent to you in the case of my death.  
At the moment that still seems rather unlikely.  
Perhaps I have been staring at you for a bit too long.  
I just like staring at you.  
You are very handsome.  
Every single part of you is.  
Someday I will get the chance to tell you that again. 

“Everything alright, Sherlock?” you ask. There is a soft smile forming around your lips. I know it means endearment. I wish I had figured that out a bit sooner back in the 19th century. We could have had so many more good memories then. 

I just nod.  
I still find it hard to speak around you sometimes. Afraid that I will break some sort of fragile spell if I do or manage to wake myself up from this most blissful and perfect dream.

You chuckle as you shake your head and the sound of it makes my heart pound like it hasn't done in over 100 years. 

“You were staring at me”, you say. But your tone is still playful and light. I think you secretly like it. My already apparent admiration for you. You used to like it anyway. 

“I was looking at your face”, I reply. 

You look puzzled now.  
“What's so interesting about my face?”

I just give a sort of half-shrug in reply and bring my attention back to this letter.  
There are no words in the English language or, indeed, any language, that can describe all the wonders and intricate details that I adore about your face.  
That I have missed like the very air I breathe.  
I can already see where the small wrinkles will start to form at the corners of your eyes in a couple of years.  
You will fuss over them and I will shower them with soft and reverent kisses when we find ourselves alone in our shared bed on a cold winter's night.  
But not yet.  
We are at the beginning of the story once again.

I steal another glance at you. I need to commit every detail of how you are now to memory before the inexorable passage of time changes it into something new and equally beautiful and exciting. 

You chuckle once more. 

I just look at your eyes. 

Gray-blue. 

Beautiful. 

I commit every detail to memory. 

Who knows what the future will bring this time but for now I am once again whole.

**Author's Note:**

> This was the only plot bunny that popped up in my head when listening to that song.  
> It might be a bit strange but this is just the feeling that song gives me.  
> It's about a love that transcends space and time and.....well....that's what I wanted to write about.


End file.
